Quick reads for some holiday downtime, Christmas in America is a collection of short stories set in different eras in American history. I was drawn to this collection by my latest favorite historical romance author Joanna Shupe, and her story was fabulous and quick reading. Two stories are great, one good, and one just OK. So enjoy!

The whooping 11th book in the Maiden Lane Series, Duke of Pleasure is a fabulous historical fiction with action, romance and a little mystery. A Duke on a mission, Hugh Fitzroy is about to be killed when he’s strategically attacked. But a masked hero appears and helps him fight for his life. Only he discovers that hero is a her. As he continues his mission – on the streets of London and another mission at home with his two sons – the Duke finds an unlikely friend and ally who was raised on the streets.

One of my first Elizabeth Hoyt books, Duke of Pleasure is exactly what I love about historical romance – witty characters, come-back stories and overcoming the odds. And bonus: If you like Duke of Pleasure (which you probably will), you’ve got a slew of other Maiden Series books to pick from. I haven’t read one I didn’t like. Shop all Elizabeth Hoyt Maiden Series on Amazon.

Long-time penpals, Dr. Rhys Gray and Miss Margaret Babcock have been friends since he treated her father. Now he’s excited to help Margaret introduce her rose hybrids to the elite society of botanists in London. Though she’s not a traditional society lady, Margaret goes to London to present her prize plants. A quick-reading and fun historical romance, it had some of my favorite elements: A tomboy lady and set in the Regency Era.

Fates and Traitors is a fictional accounting of the life (and surrounding people’s lives) of John Wilkes Booth, the infamous assassin of Abraham Lincoln. History books portray him as an evil villain and it’s not so black and white; there’s much more to the story especially from the point of view of four influential women surrounding him. Enjoy Jennifer Chiaverini’s fictional telling, and immerse yourself in the interesting and potentially true stories of a complicated man. From Booth’s childhood, his famous actor-alcoholic father, his siblings, mother – and the elite Washington DC girlfriend who knew nothing of his politics. Even when you know the ending, you’ll continue to enjoy the journey and challenges of John Wilkes Booth and the people around him and how they suffered following Lincoln’s assassination and Booth’s death, despite their differing politics.

There’s three days left to vote in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards for your favorite books of 2016. Even Erin and Terra at Books for Her didn’t have a chance to read them all – but we got through a lot of them and here’s our picks.

First published in 1988 under her pen name, Shannon Drake, Ondine is now being re-released as Heather Graham. A play on the mythological tale of a mermaid given life by a man, this Ondine is a real-life 17th century duchess in hiding, saved from the gallows by a passing nobleman who has reasons of his own for taking a bride. This is stock entertaining historical romance novel, with a massive twisty plot, miles of dialogue, and, I must say, a somewhat excessive use of the exclamation point.

Based on Queen Victoria’s own diaries, Daisy Goodwin’s novel follows the young Victoria’s ascension to the throne, and her supposed relationship with her prime minister and private secretary, Lord Melbourne, who really shines as a character. Overall, I much preferred Goodwin’s first two novels, The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter in particular, which were as full as historical detail and feeling, but managed to surprise me. As a novel, Victoria is somewhat anticlimactic to a reader who knows the outcome, and likely outdone by the visual beauty of the new television series.

Someday, perhaps, I will be able to resist an enigmatically-titled historical fiction novel with a misty picture of the Eiffel Tower on the cover. Alas, today is not that day. To Capture What We Cannot Keep explores the romantic entanglements of Émile Nouguier, an architect and engineer who built the Eiffel Tower, and the initially disdainful Parisian reaction to the “modern” tower. Though only intended to last through the World’s Fair Exhibition of 1890, Eiffel’s tower became a marvel of modern engineering, a new form of art, and the symbol of France. This is a novel full of beautiful historical detail and discussions of class and modernity, a wonderful way to escape to a Paris on the cusp of great change.